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It was a true story. One college girl killed her best friend, cos she asked her to do so. The former was kept in jail for the rest of her life. All evidences showed that it was indeed she did it according to her friend’s will. who said” I want to be killed, best if by some one I like”.

Beside the life-long imprisonment, she was asked to pay the family 500 thousand RMB yuan for the economic loss ensued the death.

What if your best friend ask you to kill her or him?

The reaction of most people is to just ignore it. why so?

Only people insane claiming suicide? When some one saying he or she want to be killed, he or she just does not mean it seriously? Or he or she just does not have the right to do so? It is like he or she is claiming the desire to kill another person, which is against the law, and we ought not to help him or her to achieve that?

The first possibility is excluded in this case. The girl asking this is clearly in a normal state shown by evidences. Putting the second question aside, let us look at the third. The difference between killing others and help some one killing oneself. Viewing from extra-territory’s perspective, an individual is destroyed. It is the same.

But our moral is not built over such a point of view. If I own my life, I can end it as I like. Just like I can destroy my own car as I like, except that future enviromental law may require me to deal with the waste reste. Of course I can ask some one to help me do so. We won’t consider him or her guilty by providing help. Why help some one killing him self is diffferent? Where does the parallel break?

Human life is just no car. Any behavior that resulting in its decrease should be blamed?That is definitely not sure. Just think how many countries are embracing the death penalty still. Or a man should be killed only if his or her existence poses or has posed a severe threat to other people. Reasonable. But it follows that every one is obliged to live to maximize the good of his or her people. So suicide is not permitted even it results in the opposite.

Now the question boils down the question, given that suicide is legal, should helping others to kill him or herself be blamed? Should help some one do some thing right be blamed? No! So whether the girl should be blamed rests on whether suicide is appropriate.

A simple rule for writing, journalism writing in particular is to convey information, not emotion.

But why? We want to tell only the most impressive part of our observation. Surprising, touchy, and irratating stories we’ve exprienced. All these involves emotional excitement. That is to say, the desire of expressing ourselves is motivated by that of sharing our emotion.

Aren’t we hypocrite, saying that we need only to inform?

Admit it, whenever we are expressing, we are meanwhile selling our emotion. But emotion and information are different sort of things. They have different marketing strategies.

Or to be strict, we can not sell others emotions directly. What we do is to provide the material, the story, let them make it themselves. How easily or difficultly can they make it? That depends on many factors. One is whether we have provided a complete story. It is common for a strongly emotional story to be incomplete. Think when we are too excited to make ourselves understood. It is also has something to do with by whom the story is told. Though, few readers may have personal encounterance with the author, we can tell from his or her words when he is a reliable teller or not. We do not like to share feeling with someone we do not like. The more emotion you show, the more likely you are to irritate some group of readers, although may luckily please some other. However the price for irritating is loss of confidence in stories are to be told by the same author later. There might be some reward for pleasing of course.

Another, I think important reason is we tend to oppose the two things. Emotion and reason. That is to say, a highly emotional story is naturally viewed sceptically.

If we feel more emotion than that is directly shown in the story, i will call that understatement, it creats in us a feeling that the author is restraining his or her emotion to give an objective story. That is to be valued.

The less you sell, you more you receive, that is the marketing rule for emotion.

Some one posted a terrible story on facebook. I tend to believe it is true. It is about my country. And it is humilating. I feel ashamed. On the other hand, I know the external pressure from foreign media will force the central government to take it seriously, which is good.

That is where I am from, part of me. No complaint, do what I can to bring about some tiny change.

People tends to make friends with those who are like themselves in certain aspects but not in others. As they spend more and more time together, their way of thinking become alike. As a result, they become less sensitive to mistakes/ weakness of their friends. One reason we need friends is to have some one telling us the truth. However it seems not the case that we get more truth as we have more friends.

I have great memory of conversations. I can remember almost all of the stories I was told when I was five or six. Last Sat, when talked with Remco, I was surprised I did memorize what we talked one month ago which included several exact dates.

My memory of human faces are also quite good. Evidence: I always recognize familar faces at bus stop. Of whom, I could recall sceneries of our last meet most times.

It is supposed to be an advantage. Capacity of memory is a great part of intelligence. Although, we could make computers that save everything for us. An idea would not occur to us, if we did not have any memory about it. The long term memory is associated with the ability of analogical reasoning.

I am bad at quick response. I think too much. Usually, after a question Q is asked. My first response is ” why he or she asks this not its negation”. I try to answer this question to myself before thinking about the answer of Q. Also I am easily nervous in such circumstances. Fear of mistakes. Due to that, hard to concentrate over thing I should.